GOQii

Blog

Search Results for: fat

By 1 Comment

Know Your Fats – Oils Benefits

All that we are aware of fats and oils is their weight gain ability. But, did you know that these fats and oils have many benefits too? Recommended dietary allowance (RDA) also says 20-30% of the whole diet should come from fat. Many oils have great taste due to their fortification. For instance Olive oil pairs very well with salads.

Let’s read more benefits:

  • Brain development: Fat provides the structural components not only of cell membranes in the brain but also of myelin, the fatty insulating sheath that surrounds each nerve fiber, enabling it to carry messages faster. Many pregnant women are asked to consume oil on a slightly higher side for the brain development of the child.
  • Vitamins absorptions: Fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K are absorbed by the intestines to provide vitamins to the body.
  • Healthier skin: Right amount of fat intake decreases the chances of skin deficiencies like dry, flaky skin etc. It gives the skin a shining and rounded appeal. The layer of fat below the first layer of the skin provides insulation to help regulate body temperature.
  • Healthy cells: Fats acts as a vital part of all the membrane. Fat surrounds each cell of the body. Without a healthy fat, cell membrane will not be able to function the right way.
  • Taste: Besides being a nutritious energy source, fat adds to the appealing taste, texture, and appearance of food.
  • Cushion for organs: Many of the vital organs, especially the kidneys, heart, and intestines are cushioned by fat that helps protect them from injury and hold them in place.
  • Hormone manufacture: Fat helps in the secretion of hormones like prostaglandins, hormone-like substances that regulate many of the body’s functions. Fats also regulates the production of sex hormones. But, fat more than RDA if present will also hinder secretion of sex hormones. One should be in their ideal body weight and consume just the right amount of oil and match their ideal body weight (IBW).  Teenage girls who look lean before their puberty will put on weight from the assistance of fat cell to sex hormones.

At GOQii we advise on healthy eating and leading a healthy lifestyle.

We hope this article has given you a deeper understanding of the benefits of fats and oils in your diet. If you found this information valuable, please share your thoughts in the comments section below. For more informative articles such as this, check out Healthy Reads or you can get this information directly from a GOQii Coach by subscribing for Personalised Health Coaching here.

By 2 Comments

Types of Fat and Fat Composition

fat composition“I can’t lose weight no matter how hard I try!” – this sentence is pretty common, isn’t it? Ever wondered why? The answer lies in the extra fat deposition on our bones and organs which become an obstacle for our weight loss journey. The key to slimming down is understanding that fat loss is more important than weight loss. Let’s study about how we gain fat and fat composition in detail!

What is Fat?

Fats are substances that help the body use some vitamins and keep the skin healthy. They also help the body store energy. In food, there are different types of fats such as saturated, unsaturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, and trans fats. Most people consume too much of the wrong kinds of fat, putting their health at risk.

Good Fat vs. Bad Fat

Daily diet contains fat such as different oils (sunflower, peanut, rice bran, olive oil, sesame etc.), ghee (clarified butter), butter, cheese, avocados, eggs, nuts, seeds, milk, curd etc. (these are good fats). All these give us essential fats and 9kcal/g which helps the body function smoothly. They aid joint rotation, absorption of fat soluble Vitamins A, D, E and K. They’re the biggest source of energy.

The questions is where are we going wrong? How are we getting those chubby cheeks, round bellies, heavy arms and bulky thighs?

Do we consider how much fat we’re consuming when eating a 100g pack of chips? One packet of chips contains 100g but in serving portion, the manufacturer will only write 10g calories which amounts to approx. 20-28 pieces of chips which contain 160kcal, 7g fats and 16g carbohydrates. But do we only eat 28 pieces? It’s the same with burgers, pizzas, white paste, 2 minute noodles, biscuits, cookies and more. It has been shown that fat intake of the wrong kind will result in fat gain. As the body typically burns carbs for fuel and uses proteins for repair, it makes sense to cut back on bad fat while increasing good fat.

Different Types of Fat

The word “Fat” is broadly used to describe all body fats but that’s not true. There are several different types. Some fats can have a negative impact on health while others are necessary for good health. They can be stored as essential, subcutaneous or visceral fat. Each type of fat serves a different role. Some promote healthy metabolism and hormone levels, while others contribute to life-threatening diseases, including Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure and even Cancer.

  1. Essential Fat: Essential fat is exactly that – essential for life and a healthy body. This fat is found in our brain, bone marrow, nervous system and membranes that protect the organs. Essential fat plays a major role in hormone regulation, including the hormones that control fertility, vitamin absorption, and temperature regulation. Women need at least 10-13% of their body composition to come from essential fat to be in good health, while men require at least 2-5%.
  2. Subcutaneous Fat: This is the fat which is stored under the skin. It covers a major portion of our body fat. This is the fat we can squeeze or pinch on our arms, belly, thighs, and buttocks. We can measure subcutaneous fat as a way of estimating total body fat percentage. A certain amount of subcutaneous fat is normal and healthy, but too much can lead to imbalanced hormone levels and sensitivity.
  3. Visceral Fat: This type is also known as belly fat. It is the white fat that’s stored in your abdomen and around all the major organs such as the liver, kidneys, pancreas, intestines, and heart. High visceral fat levels can increase your risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke, artery disease, and some cancers.

Body Fat Composition

The proper body fat composition and distribution of fat will protect us from various risk factors and diseases. Women have different sights of fat deposition such as thighs, arms, buttocks, below the belly button, etc. Men experience this on their chest, belly, and waist. This deposition is different because of the varying percentage of testosterone (male hormone) and estrogen (female hormone).

In males, mean percentage body fat ranges from 22.9% at age 16-19 to 30.9% at 60-79 years of age. In females, mean percentage body fat ranges from 32% at age 8-11 to 42.4% at age 60-79. There is a close relation between fat and physical exercise as regular exercises helps you burn stored fat. Exercise helps you turn deposited fat into an energy source.

We hope this article helps you. To know more about fats, check out Healthy Reads or ask a GOQii Coach by subscribing for Personalised Health Coaching here.

#BeTheForce 

By 1 Comment

How Chronic Cardio Could be Making You Fat

chronic cardioHow often do you hit the gym and go ballistic on the treadmill? Quite often? We perfectly understand the need to run! Whether you’re running to train for a marathon, to reach a goal, chase a finish line, catch a departing train or bus, we understand how crucial running is… especially to stay fit!

But what happens when you go overboard? Do you actually cause more harm than good? You can literally run for your life and not even see an inch of a difference and sometimes, even the opposite – you’ve gained weight instead of losing it!

This can be a total nightmare for someone trying to lose weight. There’s a perfect explanation for it.

How Chronic Cardio Might be Making You Fat

1. Excessive cardio can increase stress in the body and increase your heart rate to increase blood flow to your muscles. When you do too much cardio, your stress hormones stay elevated. Some amount of stress can be good for the body, but when cortisol i.e. our stress hormone stays consistently high, it can create a lot of issues.

  • Stress can cause insulin resistance to circulate more glucose in the blood to supply energy for stress management. Insulin resistance not only means that you have more sugar in your blood than required, it also means that you store fat more easily as insulin promotes fat storage.
  • In stress, your body shuts down or slows down to fight stress effectively. Your thyroid function slows down, the levels of TSH is reduced in the body, which again promotes weight gain.
  • In women, stress can also disturb the menstruation cycle. Thus creating hormone imbalances in the body, thus promoting weight gain.
  • Chronic stress also promotes the storage of fat in the linings of our organs i.e. visceral fat, as a protection to our organs from stress. This again starts a vicious cycle of excess belly fat, insulin resistance, and more fat storage.

2. Chronic cardio can take a toll on our muscles. Chronic cardio not only burns fat, it burns muscle as well. Your muscle mass determines your metabolism and Basal Metabolic Rate. If you have more muscle, you burn more fat. So when you lose muscle, your metabolism drops and you do not burn as much fat anymore.

So, how do we get the most of our workout? Do a combination of cardio and weight training to promote muscle growth and fat burn. Also indulge in yoga and meditation on a regular basis for better stress management, better sleep and preventing the issues listed above.

We hope this article helps you and keeps you from going overboard. Remember that anything in excess is bad! Stay moderate and stay healthy!

If this information helped, let us know in the comments below. You can find more articles on fitness here. To level up your workouts and get the right guidance and motivation, you can join live, interactive sessions conducted by experts on GOQii PRO. Book a class via the GOQii App now.

#BeTheForce 

By 1 Comment

10 Easy & Effective Tips For Fat Loss

fat loss

In recent years, food choices have become plenty and the comfort of ordering food online via an app makes it difficult to eat healthy much less aid fat loss. With so many choices, abundance and variety, natural and healthy foods have somewhat been left behind.

Even food brands, restaurants or eateries that sell “healthy foods” don’t help you cut back unwanted fat. So how exactly can your food choices help you reduce body fat? Here are a few tips that can help you reduce fat and get healthy!

10 Effective Tips For Fat Loss

  1. Begin Your Day with a Fruit: Eat a fruit within 15-20 mins of waking up. This is handy for both working and non-working folks who are rushing through their morning routine. Fruits being rich in fiber, fructose and micronutrients, replenish glycogen stores in the liver after a long fasting period at night and jumpstart metabolism which aids fat loss.
  2. Avoid Processed/Packaged Food: Certain processed foods that come in plastic packets are calorie dense, don’t have natural dietary fiber, and usually lack essential nutrients & minerals required for fat loss. Whereas dietary fiber from whole grains has longer intestinal-transit time and hence has a higher satiety value as compared to processed/packaged foods. This prevents the creation of required calorie deficit for fat loss. Thus, avoid products containing refined flour, white sugar, salt and fats such as biscuits, breads, chocolates, sugar cadies, packaged fruit juices, pastries, white pasta, white noodles, pizza, samosa, Kachori, vada pav, etc.
  3. Begin Your Meal with a Salad Twice a Day: For instance sprouts + vegetables. Since raw, non-starchy vegetables contain high amount of water and fiber, they can be consumed in a relatively larger amount contributing to increased satiety with fewer calories. Thus, aiding fat loss by creating an energy-deficit. Vegetables are important sources of many nutrients which boost the speed of various biochemical reactions that burn stored fat. Dietary fiber from vegetables also have a prebiotic effect and promotes growth of health beneficial bacteria which even aids lipid metabolism.
  4. Add Protein in Meals: Proteins take longer time to digest. Hence, it keeps us fuller for a long time which in turn prevents us from eating more often. Secondly, proteins are building blocks for muscles which again help in increasing the basal metabolic rate. Thus, help in burning extra fat stored in Adipocytes.
  5. Small & Frequent Low Calorie Meals: Try to eat smaller meals every 2.5 to 3 hours rather than eating a huge meal after a long gap or eating too frequently. Spacing out the meals adequately and breaking it down into smaller meals gives our body enough time to metabolize the food. This leaves little or no chance for food to get converted to fat and get stored in your body. Don’t forget to eat up to 70-80% of your stomach’s capacity.
  6. Drink a Glass of Water Every Hour: Now, you might be thinking, how water can help in fat loss? Well, water fills you up in zero calories and being a medium of all cell fluids, it facilitates all physio-chemical reactions in the body including the ones which causes fat oxidation.
  7. Go for Home-Cooked Meals: Yes, at least 4-5 days in a week, eat home cooked food. This prevents intake of outside food which may have an unhealthy quality and quantity of fats. You’d rather eat a satiable and nutrient dense meal which aid fat loss.
  8. Use Cooking Oil Sparingly: Go for steamed, grilled, roasted, sautéed cooking methods using non-stick cookware to reduce the amount of oil used for cooking.
  9. Get Active: An active lifestyle helps in burning the stored fat by increasing the basal metabolic rate and blood circulation. Exercise should be a combination of aerobic/cardio and resistance training.
  10. Sleep Your Way to Fat Loss: Are you getting adequate sleep? Yes! If you don’t sleep well, it will create stress in your body and facilitate the release of cortisol which leads to fat accumulation in the body over a period of time. So get a good night’s rest. Try these tips to sleep better!

Remember, food is for nourishment of body not for over indulgence. Eat to Live, not Live to Eat. If this article helped you, let us know in the comments below. You can browse through more articles on weight loss here.

If you want to lose weight in a healthy, sustainable manner, get the right advice from a certified expert through the GOQii Transform weight management program here.

#BeTheForce

From Terminal Illness To Complete Wellness! Ananda Mukherjee Health Story

As we observe World Cancer Day under the powerful theme ‘United by Unique’ (2025-2027)**, we are reminded that every individual’s journey with cancer is distinct, yet united by shared resilience, hope, and the collective fight against this disease. This theme places people at the centre of care and their stories at the heart of the […]